Consular Corps

Niagara Foundation Welcomes Hon. Ping Huang, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China for a Luncheon Forum.

Theme: China's economic & social development, path of peaceful development and China-US relations

Date: Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.15 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

Hon. Ping Huang's Speech

On April 30, 2008, Hon. Ping Huang, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China, gave a lecture about developments in modern China. His presentation was threefold. First he presented the social and economic situation in China. Second he discussed China’s path of peaceful development. Third and lastly he spoke on U.S. and China relations. Ever since adopting its “opening up policy”, China has made remarkable progress in political, economic, and social developments. The economy has maintained steady growth. At present China’s GDP ranks 4th in the world; while its total import and export value ranked 3rd. Chinese peoples’ living standards have improved. Not only has China’s sturdy development benefited its 1.3 billion people, but also offered tremendous business opportunities to other countries by contributing about 16% of global economic growth in 2007. That having been said, China is still the largest developing country in the world. Developing the economy and steadily improving the living standards of the Chinese people is the central task of the Chinese government. China will adhere to the path of peaceful development and the building of a harmonious world in years to come. China will make use of the international peaceful environment to develop itself and at the same time promote world peace. To do this, China must open itself wider and work more closely with the rest of the world so that “we all come out as winners.” China will continue to pursue the independent foreign policy of peace and will always be a strong force for world peace without seeking hegemony or engaging in expansion. Next Mr. Huang discussed the relations between China and the United States. China and the United States established diplomatic relations in 1979. The relation on the whole is moving forward steadily. It has become one of the most important state to state relations in today’s world. President Hu Jintao and President Bush have met and reached agreements on a wide range of issues. In the early days of diplomatic relations China and the U.S. had no intergovernmental co operational agreement at all. Today there exists over 30. President Bush and President Hu Jintao met several times in recent years and reached important agreements over a wide range of issues: economy, trade, counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, education, environmental protection, and law enforcement – just to name a few. Also important is maintaining close consultation and cooperation of major international and regional issues such as the North Korean and Iranian nuclear issues, UN reforms, climate changes, disease control and prevention, Dar fur, Myanmar, and the Middle East. In 2007 China and the U.S. trade reached a new record. With a total of 300 billion which was 10.5% increase more than the previous year. China is now the United States’ 2nd largest trading partner and vice versa. China is a major and fastest growing export market for the United States; while the U.S. is China’s 2nd largest export market. Between China and the Midwest states there have been developments in trade, culture, education, and technology. Many companies have a huge investment in China. 30 Chinese companies are doing business in the Midwest with a total investment of 100 million. The U.S. investment in China is much larger with 56 billion U.S. dollars total. 2008 is an important year for both China and the U.S. China will not only mark the 30th anniversary of its reform and opening up but also host the Olympic Games. The U.S. will elect its new president. It is Mr. Huang’s wish that the advancement of the constructive and cooperative China/U.S. relationship should prosper. There were several interesting topics brought up in the question and answer session of the presentation. Questions were raised concerning China’s position on Dar Fur. Also discussed was how the Chinese government balances globalization and political system of China (communism). Another topic that was brought up was about the competition between China and India. Someone else brought up human rights and whether the ends justify the means.

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Niagara Foundation Welcomes Honorable Kenan Ipek, Consul General of the Republic of Turkey for a Luncheon Forum.

Theme: Alliance of Civilizations

Date: Thursday, March 20, 2008

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.15 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

Kenan Ipek's Speech

The Honorable Kenan Ipek presented a speech about building alliances of civilizations. One project that he mentioned was between Turkey and Spain. He explained the strategically located position of Turkey. It’s between north and south, and east and west. The project is now at the stage of initiating an outlining of ideas. According to Mr. Ipek, now is the time, especially after 9-11, to clear up and eliminate any misunderstandings. The real enemies are those who engage in international terrorism. The process of fighting terrorism is threefold. The first is to establish an alliance of solidarity. The next step is to establish an alliance of cooperation. And the last step is to set up a strong political commitment. Mr Ipek states that the problem is great and urgent. Now is the time to act for all our countries. Concerning terrorism, a problem for one is a problem for all. My problem is your problem, and vice versa. The cross cultural dialogue is likely to be published soon. This is a call on all countries, but know that this is a long process. Its important to believe in success. Turkey is an excellent example. Churches, synagogues, and mosques coexist in peace, side by side. Lastly in the question and answer session Mr Ipek discussed his work with students, about terrorism, and about tolerance and embracing differences.

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Niagara Foundation Welcomes Honorable Marek Skolil, Consul General of the Czech Republic, for a Luncheon Forum.

Theme: New or Old Europe? - Czech Republic in the European Union

Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.15 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

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Niagara Foundation Welcomes Honorable M. Main de Boissière, Consul General of France in Chicago for a Luncheon Forum.

http://www.consulfrance-chicago.org

Theme: France's policy of integration, its republican tradition and challenges ahead

Date: Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.15 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

Shots from the event (click on image to enlarge it)

Niagara Foundation Welcomes Honorable Wolfgang Drautz, German Consul General, for a Luncheon Forum.

Theme: The EU and the German Presidency

Date: Thursday-May 10, 2007

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.30 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

Shots from the event (click on image to enlarge it)

Niagara Foundation Welcomes Honorable Robert Zischg, The Consul General of Austria here in Chicago for a Luncheon Forum.

Theme: EU-Turkey Relations: Cooperation of the Civilizations

Date: Thursday-April 19, 2007

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.30 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

Robert Zischg's Speech

Robert Zischg: I am very impressed by the speakers and congratulate for the progress of NF Niagara Foundation continues to host high-profile speakers from different spheres of business, economic, social, ethnic, religious, cultural and political life of Chicago and beyond. This certainly helps Chicago’s very diverse communities to foster their existence and representation, as well as getting in touch with different kind of people from business, education and politics. Niagara Foundation also encourages discussions around international topics with consul-generals of different American and European Countries. Niagara Foundation hosted British and Canadian consul general who talked about their countries and the relations with America and particularly with Chicago area. To continue this tradition, Niagara Foundation invited Robert Zischg, the Consul General of Austria to Chicago as a keynote speaker for luncheon forums series on 19th April, 2007 at Niagara Foundation’s office. Many consul generals welcomed Honorable Robert Zischg in the reception that Niagara Foundation had before the forum including newly appointed consul general of Turkey to Chicago, Czech Republic Consul General to Chicago, Pakistan’s Consul General to Chicago and so forth. Kemal Oksuz, the Executive Director of Niagara Foundation, officially declared the forum open and thanked everyone that welcomed to Niagara Foundation. He then introduced distinguished guests and thanked them for joining us today. He also directly congratulated Mr. Kenan Ipekchi for his new job as the Consul General of Turkey to Chicago. Afterwards, people are invited to watch a brief documentary and highlights of luncheon forums that Niagara Foundation has been undertaking since September, 2006. After the documentary, Kemal Oksuz read the resume of Robert Zischg and welcomed him to the tribune to talk about the ‘Cooperation of Civilizations: Turkey’s role in EU negotiations’ Honorable Zischg thanked very much to Kemal and his staff for organizing this kind of events. He was very impressed by the speakers and really wants to congratulate on progress. Most of the attendees stressed how important it is to cooperate and have dialogue. “It is important” they said. To deliver a short speech which stimulates dialogue on tribune theme which still is EU Turkish relations as Turkey started negotiations. It was top because of European and American interests. There are number of media reports for accession to EU. You should have this dialogue in unbiased and in unemotional condition. “What I tried to do is very personal. It is even more challenging to express one’s own personal and not to repeat official lines” said Mr. Zischg. “I want to clarify number of issues” put Honorable Consul General Robert Gischzg, that “Turkey has a long-standing project with EU, 1959. They also had a singed contract in 1995 which established customs union. Military coup d’etats in Turkey loosened the relations of Turkey with EU especially during 80s. Turkey applied to European Union again in 1986, Turkey’s criteria to become a candidate. The full grant of candidacy was given in 1999 Helsinki which is the first step and first stage of becoming the member of EU. 1999-2004, number of missions has been taken between EU and Turkey including financial assistance by EU, pre-accession strategy. “Informal nature of the discussion and I wish Turkey to become the member EC. It has a long history, strong will of Turkey to become in to European family” said Zischg. EU was reluctant to accept Turkey. Politicians thought Turkey was not ready to get in. Step-by-step process, EU asked Turkey to move in issues like democratization, rule of law, human rights, economic development and so forth. In 1995, Turkey fulfilled criteria to become a candidate. Turkey had an amazing progress in democratization, rule of law, economy and human right areas. In 2004, EU had to admit this fact and start accession negotiation in December, 17. What does it mean to negotiate? This is a long process; EU is a clap of high requirement. Legal framework for justice and home affairs as well as the economic market. You have very high threshold to get in be a member states. The number of issues must be clarified. EU only took step by step approach until now. We cannot simply move from country to country. Robert Zischg read the law of which countries can actually become a member state of European Union. Those countries who are open to the principles to liberty, rule of law, human rights, democracy. Also the country should be interested in stable institutions. The countries should have advancement in economic field with fully functioning market economy and they should have highly competitive market to keep up with our market. These negotiations are open-ended and always have been so and the results are not predictable. It could be very long process of negotiations, fully membership is not achievable. Free movement capital, human resources, free market, free movement of labor, network, environment, customs union, fisheries, and foreign policies are some fundamental principles of EU. For many people it is difficult to understand why we don’t accept Turkey. Turkey is a special case. In number of instances and areas, they have shortcomings and fallacies. These are the challenges and considerations and we have to look at these issues. Geography is the first point and Turkey’s only 3 % turkey is in Europe. Security: Middle East issues, Turkey are surrounded by unstable countries in borders including Iran, Iraq, Syria, trouble in Caucasian. Trafficking and drugs are another challenge ahead waiting European Union from Turkey. Economy: The economy is the most important one. Because, in 2004 European Union had a very huge expansion that still it needs to digest all this issues. Poor countries – Portugal, Greece and Spain. Turkey would be challenge and it is really a very big country by size and population. It has made a considerable progress; yet the many financial issues are to be transferred funds from budget and benefit Turkey. Human rights and democracy: Continuing problems to implementation of human rights, gender equality, Kurdish population, treatment with non-Muslims, again I have to say progress in past Turkey did but needs to do more. Expansion ability: EU needs to be institutionally and economically ready and prepared. Turkey has very high birth rate and it wills double its population in some decades. Freedom of movement of persons are quite fear among Europeans and they want a huge influx wave of movement of Turkish people towards Europe. . Public opinion: in 2006, 48 % are against for Turkey’s joining, 39 % in favor for Turkey to come in. Austrians are the most skeptic people with 81 %. In Sweden, 61 % of population thinks that Turkey should become a member of EU. Robert Zischg also pointed out to the fact that is not a Christian club. He said that Austria is in favor of Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo and these are predominantly Muslim countries. Kemal Oksuz gave Turkish coffee porcelain cup to Honorable Robert Zischg as a gift for his kindness and generosity after he address all the interesting questions asked. The event followed and ended by having delicious Turkish lunch and meeting with new people.

Shots from the event (click on image to enlarge it)

Niagara Foundation Welcomes, The Honourable Georges Rioux, Consul General of Canada, for a Luncheon Forum.

Theme: CANADA:Some Thoughts on Chicagoland's Closest Neighbour

Date: Thursday-March 15, 2007

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.30 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

Georges Rioux 's Speech

Georges Rioux: Creating Human Capital is what Niagara Foundation In To Niagara Foundation is determined and aim to build dialogues not only with religious, ethnic communities, public schools, universities or business institutions, but also political institutions like consulates to Chicago. Almost becoming a weekly favorite venue for certain people, Niagara Foundation again honored to host another honorable person, His Excellency George Rioux, Consul General of Canada to Chicago. As always, people from different communities, institutions, universities, schools, churches and consulates kept coming in and getting prepared for the event. Honorable George Rioux, Consul General, would address the audience on topic of “Some thoughts on Canada – the closest neighbor of Chicago land”. Profile and number of participants showed the high level of interest on the topic and significance of the keynote speaker. The Associate Director of Niagara Foundation, M. Hilmi Cinar, presented Honorable George Rioux’s resume. Mr. Rioux thanked audience for coming to the event. He was giving a presentation about Canada. He complained about the news that is not out immediately for his use about Canada, too so that he is forced to use obsolete data. Consul General’s topic was Canadian Human Capital. “Creating Human Capital is what everyone wants to see today and this is what Niagara Foundation in to. Georges Rioux employed a lot of statistics about American-Canada trade relationship and he was keeping emphasizing the importance of not only having good and tight trade relationships, but also friendship and integration in to American society. “Canada today has 31.6 million people; 12 million is in Ontario and 7 million is in Quebec. If we were to look at the number for Chicago land, roughly the same proportion for the age group would be same. Our internal population is growing and it is a little bit lower than the USA” said Mr. Rioux. According to Mr. Rioux, Canada is located in 10 urban major locations. What we have seen is that growth has been concentrated in top 6 cities. “We grow 6 % annually. You have about 1.5 billion good and services crossing borders everyday, providing 7 million US jobs. Selling things to each other is not really the case, but building friendship and being together is of huge importance” told Mr. Rioux. 25 % of trade is intra-company trade, integration and manufacture. Canada and the US share the world’s largest and most comprehensive trading relationship. Benefits and challenges, huge learning infrastructure, making benefits portable are just few examples of what Canada sought to implement. Canada supplied 16 percent of U.S. imports of crude and refined oil products - more than any other country at over two million barrels a day. Canada provided 85 percent of all U.S. natural gas imports and approximately 27 percent of the uranium used in U.S. nuclear power plants. Immigrants made up the vast majority of the 1.6 million new Canadians between 2001 and 2006, giving the country the highest population growth rate among G8 countries. Immigrants account for more than 70% of all Canadian labor force growth, a proportion that will grow to 100% in the next 10 years. Canada’s recent immigration levels have been double those of the United States. Roughly 1.2 million new immigrants made up the bulk of the population growth in the latest census, while the country's native-born population increased by 400,000. The aim is to create a forum in which the experience of immigration — from the municipal point of view — can play a greater role in informing the policy making process “Michigan is the largest component of trade; it also possesses the largest virtue of automobiles. Numbers are pretty significant in this sphere and Canada is number one trading partner for the USA. When we look at numbers of jobs supported because of trade, it is significant, it is evenly distributed. There is a lot of integration. Midwest is really where we have bulk of imports and exports that we are coming in. This applies to some of other regions, too” added Mr. Rioux. Canada is also engaged into many activities on Great Lakes area, a lot of efforts and quality works in water filtering have been undertaken. “One thing is increasingly an issue for us is that we are challenged by human resources. We are doing learning opportunities and making sure that our kids will be good” stressed Mr. Rioux. Mr. Rioux emphasized that we will beat up to have better mobility and trade. Largest concentration of universities and research institutions are in the Midwest, you can see that we have one of the best networks of universities. We are very fortunate; there are a lot of relationships with those institutions. “Issue is energy, though” complained Mr. Rioux, that’s why “Canada is the largest energy suppliers to the USA and it has $ 179 billion worth reserves. “There is a lot of investment and building infrastructure. In 2004, Canada exported $ 60 billion energy to the USA. We did with 2 million barrels a day. 27 % of uranium has been also exported to the USA. This numbers are growing. There are 25 pipelines crossing the borders” stressed Mr. Rioux. After his speech, Mr. Georges Rioux addressed the questions related to diversity, immigration and oil issues from the audience. After the speech, M. Hilmi Cinar gave a very valuable gift to Honorable Consul General, His Excellency George Rioux. While having delicious, home-made Turkish lunch with participants, Georges Rioux said that “this forum initiative is a great idea and you had important people speaking over here. It is a great idea where people come together and talk about important issues. I am impressed by your event, impressed by the people. We should find ways to bring more people together. I think this is great and you are playing great role in the community” in his interview to Niagara Foundation Media Department.

The presentation given by the Consul General George Rioux (View &Download )

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Niagara Foundation Welcomes Honorable Hidayat K. Hadimadja, Acting Consul General of Indonesia here in Chicago for a Luncheon Forum.

Theme: Christian & Muslim Collaboration to Heal the Wounds after Tsunami Disaster

Date: September 19, 2006

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.30 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

Niagara Foundation Welcomes Honorable Andrew Seaton, Consul General of United Kingdom here in Chicago for a Luncheon Forum.

Theme: The impact of the London Events on the Muslim Community and the roles that the key Stakeholders had to counter Islamphobia and strengthen Cohesion

Date: September 7, 2006

Reception: 12:00 p.m.

Luncheon: 12.30 p.m.

Venue: Niagara Foundation

203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1700 Chicago, IL 60601

T- (312) 701-0086 F- (312) 701-0087 info@niagarafoundation.org

Shots from the event (click on image to enlarge it)

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